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- Hello, welcome to Illinois Stories.

I'm Mark McDonald in Clinton in DeWitt County in front of the Vespasian Warner Public Library.

This is a very interesting piece of history because Mr. Warner built this for the community back in 1908 and through the years, they have added on to this graceful sort of a historic structure.

And it looks sort of like a prairie building.

It's like tripled in size.

And they take their library very seriously here.

And when you see the inside of it, I think you'll agree that it's absolutely stunning.

Bobbi Perryman, you've been working here for what 22 years?

- 22 years this May.

- You know the operation just a little bit.

- Yeah, a little.

Started at the bottom and worked my way up.

- Yep, and you're the director now?

- Yes.

- Which is really sweet.

I imagine you're very attached to this building.

I'm looking at the - Absolutely.

- at the cornerstone, it says 1906.

That was a time when a lot of communities were getting Carnegie libraries.

Apparently that wasn't gonna happen in Clinton.

- Yes, we're not, in fact some people look at it and think it's a Carnegie.

It is not, the style is actually very different.

As you said, this is a very prairie style building.

So we had in town a man by the name of C.H.

Moore.

He was a very prominent attorney and a very wealthy man who collected about 8,000 books in his lifetime.

When he passed away in 1901, he left that collection to the city, with the stipulation that the city properly housed it.

Otherwise it was going to an institution in Ohio.

So it was spent some time in a hotel room.

It spent some time above a meat market up on our public square.

But then in 1906, his son-in-law Vespasian Warner donated the $25,000 and the plot of land to actually build a permanent structure for these materials.

- Okay, and he owned this property.

Mr. Warner actually lived in this large house next door.

So this was part of his property?

- Yes, this was all his property.

In fact we're surrounded by Warner houses.

There's one behind you that was a Warner house.

There's one across the street that was a Warner house.

But that was his home from 1912 until his death in 1925.

- And you have a particular connection to this because you and your family live in the house now, don't you?

- Yes, that is now our house, it did not.

- - Nice commute by the way.

- It's wonderful commute.

It did not come with the position, unfortunately, we are purchasing it.

But we love it, it's a wonderful house.

- Yeah, okay.

What I'd like to do is I'd like you to walk us around this building so we can see the addition, because this is really, whoever thought up the way to do this was really very imaginative.

- Yes.

- Because what you've been able to do is, you keep the old building exposed on the inside of the new building.

- Yes.

- So you can see how they're joined together, that's super.

- Well, and what's wonderful is they can never tear down our original building that is so beloved in this community.

Because that would take out one entire wall of our new building.

- Right, right, and that will never happen.

- That will never happen.

- But you want people to be able to see the connection between the old building and the new building.

- Yes.

- If you just put a wall between them, and then you had a modern, bright, new part of the building.

Nobody would ever make the connection.

- No, and it would clash.

And my compliments to the architects though, that they made it match so beautifully.

- [Mark] They really did a great job.

And that was in 1992?

- [Bobbi] Yes, the building was begun in 1991 and completed in '92.

- [Mark] Okay, so, we're looking at the front of it now, and it's nice the way they matched it up.

Because this also has a prairie style look but much more brighter.

- Yes, it's very open.

We have lots of huge windows, we have a skylight.

So we get lots of wonderful natural light.

I remember I was a little girl when we were still using the old building.

Going down to the activity room in the basement was like a horror movie, almost.

It was very dark, it was creepy when I was very small.

But now it's bright and airy, but still retaining all of the touches from the original building.

- Yep.

Well I'll tell you what, let's go in.

And now first, I want to go to the old section and take a look at what Mr. Warner, what his design and what his ideas were.

And then spend most of our time in the new section.

Because that's the part that's really sort of stunning, the way you've used the natural light inside.

- Absolutely.

- Okay, let's go.

- [Bobbi] Okay.

- [Mark] Well Bobbi, back in the day before you added on, we would've come in, these were the main entrance, right?

- [Bobbi] Yes.

- We would've come in from this side, the side that you and I opened the program on.

So you walk up the steps and come in the main entrance and this would've been the entirety of the library.

But it was two floors.

- Yes.

- So it was really pretty good size.

- It was decent size, especially when it was originally built, Clinton had a smaller population and at that point, this was a city library.

So it only served the people who lived in Clinton.

In the late '80s we expanded, became a library district.

So we now serve Hallsville and Lane and Wapella and all these outlying areas as well.

So our population size exploded.

- Well goodness knows you've got the space for it though.

- Yes, yes.

- I mean now, with that addition, you've really got a tremendous amount of space.

- Absolutely.

- Okay, we talked about Vespasian Warner and you have a tribute here to him as you would've come in the main entrance.

He was a local boy.

- [Bobbi] Yep.

- [Mark] He served in the civil war, he was a civil war soldier.

And then he went to Harvard, became an attorney, I think.

- [Bobbi] Yes, he actually just walked, he decided he was done with the army in 1867.

Went to Boston for the first time in his life.

walked in the doors and said, here's my story.

I'm a veteran.

Can I join your law school?

And they let him in.

- [Mark] You know, that was a good choice I think on that one.

- [Bobbi] Yes, it was.

- [Mark] And then he later became, he was a successful attorney.

Build a big house, bought a lot of property, and then became a Congressman.

- Yes, and he served for a few years as a Congressman and then Theodore Roosevelt appointed him to be Commissioner of Pensions, which is what we would now call the Head of the Veterans Affairs.

So he made sure that every Civil War veteran, every widow got the pension that they were owed.

- Yeah, yeah.

And then sometime during that, actually 1906 then, decided this community needs a library.

- Yes.

- Put his money into it.

And he actually bought a plan that was already in existence for other libraries.

There were other libraries like this.

- We found a few here and there.

But yes, this was a standard plan that could be purchased for a prairie style library.

C.H.

Moore, who I already talked about, his father-in-law had a vision of like a Grecian temple.

But Mr. Warner thought that was inappropriate for this area and thought a prairie style would suit much better.

- Very nice, let's take a look around.

I love the archway here.

This is, all of the shelving here that you see is original.

- All of the dark colored shelving, yes, is the original.

These were added with the remodel in the early 90s.

And then we had to expand a little bit here as you can see, we have a very large movie collection.

- [Mark] And I love these chandeliers, are they original?

- [Bobbi] They are original, 1908 originals.

- [Mark] Oh they're so classy.

- [Bobbi] Yes.

- [Mark] They look really modern.

- [Bobbi] And it was just amazing how they found more of them or were able to fabricate more for the new building.

- Yeah, oh is that right?

So you also have them over there?

- Yes.

- Okay, good.

Okay, this would've been the original desk, right?

- [Bobbi] Yep, yes.

- Okay, more of these wonderful chandeliers.

Now we're gonna make the crossover into the new building.

And the reason I want to do that, well before we do that, we're not gonna spend a lot of time here.

But this exhibit stays up and this is your World War I exhibit.

- Right now this is World War I. Logan Janicki, one of our employees, has a history degree and he switches this out about once a quarter.

So we have a World War I collection of DeWitt County soldiers, nurses, that includes service records, photographs, and letters written from Europe sent back here to DeWitt County.

- [Mark] And the letters are so informative, aren't they?

- [Bobbi] Oh, they're wonderful.

We have about 150 of those letters.

- [Mark] Wow, yeah.

Because that's where you really learn what was going on in their heart, in their mind, isn't it?

- [Bobbi] Yes, I've given a couple of talks on those letters.

And they're wonderful to read through.

- Yeah, that's a great use of space there.

Okay, now we just entered into the new part of the library.

And I like this so much because guess what faces you?

- [Bobbi] Yep.

Where we have the facade.

- [Mark] The outside, the back of the old library, isn't that nifty?

- And it goes all the way, top to bottom.

So we have three floors here that we use.

Several years ago, we had an exhibit from the United States Holocaust Memorial and Museum.

And it came with these gigantic banners that were very long, vertical banners.

Like, we don't know what to do with these, but then it hit us, we could hang them here.

And it worked.

- Yeah, absolutely.

You could take about, oh 15 feet or so, you could use it.

- Yes.

- [Mark] And then you go straight down and if we look straight down, that's your history room down there.

- [Bobbi] Yes.

- We're gonna spend a little time down there too, because I wanna learn a little more about Dewitt County, but this is outstanding.

And actually, you get an even better view upstairs.

- Yes, absolutely.

- Because it really widens out.

Well, Bobbi, if you're on the second floor, which is the children's level, this is what the old building looks like.

And then you see this enormous lighted space with the windows up, the windows on the roof, which just opens everything.

- [Bobbi] Yes.

- [Mark] Beautifully.

Doesn't it?

- It was spectacular.

I was 10 years old when this opened and we had gone from the creepy basement to this.

I remember the first time I saw, I was like, ah, it's amazing.

I had to drag my dad up here, you have to see this, because it was incredible.

And I know Melinda Evans was the director at that point.

And originally, the architects were like, well the children's rooms are gonna be in the basement.

And Melinda said, no, those are our future voters.

We want them up on the top.

So they made sure that they had, the children had a beautiful, wonderful space.

- It is a beautiful space.

And, you know, on that end particular, it's all windows.

- Yes.

- You know, and then you got the skylight of course.

And just, well, what a cheerful place to be.

- [Bobbi] Well, and especially, of course, it's a gray dreary day today, but when the sun is out, it's incredible up here with all the sunlight.

- [Mark] Well, let's take a walk down this way.

And this is the children's level, huh?

- [Bobbi] Yes.

- I love the Orca.

And you got these animals all over the place.

Is that homemade?

- That is all homemade.

So Melissa Snow is our Youth Services Assistant.

She's an amazing artist.

And we had this penguin up for a few years and the kids just loved it and they loved going up to it.

So she had the idea of making more to-scale animals.

So she paints them all herself.

They're all hand painted.

- [Mark] How neat.

- And cuts them out and they are all to-scale.

So this Orca is actually on the smaller side for an Orca.

They can be longer.

- But it's an actual 18 and a half feet long.

- It is 18 and a half feet long.

- So I mean, I'm sure that there are orcas in that size, but that's fantastic.

- She also made the diver just for scale for the kids so they can look at it and see, well, there's a normal size person and here's this Orca.

- Interesting.

Well, she's, don't let her go.

- I will not, she's wonderful.

- You have some, for kids who need to use computers.

- Yeah.

- You've got that area set up here for them.

And then you've got a series of rooms back there.

What are those?

- So we have two study rooms that, of course they're empty right now, but they're actually very heavily used.

So we have people who need to study or to have a small meeting, family visits, anything like that, they can use a study room for, which is great.

And in the middle, we have our Youth Services Librarian's office.

So Corey Campbell is our Youth Services Librarian.

He started two years ago and he's done an amazing job.

Paula Lapaddock, people who are from this area will know Paula, she was our children's librarian for 40 years.

She was the first one we ever had.

And she launched our children's program and just did a wonderful job with it.

- And she was here when this edition was?

- She was here when the edition was built, yes.

- I'm getting just knocked out by this skylight area here.

Tell us about a little bit about the architect that built this, or do you know much about them?

- So I don't know a great deal about them.

They are, it's Frye Gillan and Molinaro, if I said that correctly.

They're based out of Chicago and they had done other libraries before, and there are a few other libraries I know of that have this join of old building and new building.

They're the ones who really wanted to push for all the natural light, which is just absolutely wonderful to have.

- It sure is.

And actually it makes your day as working here, makes your day pretty pleasant.

- Oh, it does, yes.

Even in my office, I have a gigantic window and it's wonderful.

- The old library had, upstairs, had an exhibit, I guess it was exhibit space.

You still use it for that, don't you?

- We do.

- Can we take a look?

- Absolutely.

- Okay.

Bobbi, back in time, again, we're back - Yes.

- in the old building and I kind of like this, 'cause we're gonna look at this exhibit space, but you use this to talk about the history of DeWitt County.

- Yes.

So.

- It's really a nice chest too.

- It is.

It's beautiful.

But yeah, Clinton is the county seat for DeWitt County.

So we were home to the courthouse.

So we have, this is the only known photograph of our original courthouse from when we became a county in 1839.

- [Mark] The old, well it's clabbard or log.

- [Bobbi] Yes.

- [Mark] I'm not sure which one, but yeah.

It's gone.

- [Bobbi] It's gone, long gone.

- [Mark] I guess they, a lot of those burned down, but it probably tore it down.

- [Bobbi] This one, they actually moved it off of the square.

- [Mark] Oh they did?

- [Bobbi] And someone bought it, it was on Woodlawn street for a while and then it was torn down.

And then in 1849, we had our first brick courthouse.

This was on our public square.

And of course this was part of, Clinton was part of Lincoln circuit.

So Lincoln was here.

- [Mark] He was in and out there all the time.

- [Bobbi] He was in and out of there all the time.

So he and C.H.

Moore, the attorney I talk about, were friends and they faced off against each other in court.

And it would've been in that building.

- [Mark] Yeah, 40 or 50 years, they used that building as the courthouse.

- [Bobbi] Yes.

- [Mark] And then this is kind of a majestic courthouse here.

- [Bobbi] So this is the third courthouse and many, many people in the county remember it fondly.

It was unfortunately torn down in 1987.

- [Mark] I bet that was a battle.

- [Bobbi] It was, people still talk about it.

- [Mark] Yeah.

- [Bobbi] So what we do have, memorabilia for it.

We have this light shade, we have a piece of the floor.

You can see, even the cupola was torn down, I think in the thirties, don't quote me on that.

- [Mark] Yeah, yeah.

- [Bobbi] But it was beloved, but it was falling apart and too small to serve the need.

- [Mark] Yeah, most of the time those went because it cost more to keep 'em up than it did to build a new one, so.

- [Bobbi] Exactly, exactly.

- Okay.

So, and I'm also looking at this beautiful floor.

This had to be replaced because we're standing in what would've been the stairway up to this floor from the downstairs.

- Yes, so originally below us, there would've been a back door to the building because this room was used by local civic groups for their meeting.

So they could come in the back door and come up what used to be the stairs right here.

And then you can kind of also see where the room transitions here.

- Sure, yeah.

- And then, the floor you can see.

- [Mark] And you can see what a good match you made, yep.

- [Bobbi] They did a really nice job when they remodeled here.

And then this is the original 1908 floor.

- [Mark] Now, okay, now this is now exhibit space.

- [Bobbi] Yes.

- And it's the entire width of the building.

And what you have in here now is a Smithsonian exhibit.

- [Bobbi] Yes.

- Which is gonna be gone by the time our viewers see this, but they can see how this space works.

- Absolutely.

- Can we walk through it a little bit here.

- And we've used this space for numerous exhibits over the years.

We also use it for programs.

We've had miniature horses in here for children's programs and concerts and all sorts of other events.

And we do have.

- [Patron] Hey, how you doing?

- [Mark] Hi.

- [Bobbi] We do at the other end have a stage.

So most of this furniture is out and about, but we kind of put it up on the stage right now.

- Oh, I see.

So if you had, if you were gonna make a presentation of some kind, and this is original, the stage is original.

- This is all original - Yeah.

- So we've had concerts here with the piano.

As recently as this past Christmas, we had a big holiday event with live music.

- Yeah, yeah.

Very nice, very nice.

When this goes, do you have plans for another exhibit?

- Not currently.

This will go back to program space for a while, but we've had some homegrown exhibits in here.

We had one on DeWitt County in the Civil War.

We've had them on DeWitt County during World War II.

So we're probably going to do something else with local history is very big for us.

- [Mark] Yeah.

And anything else from the Smithsonian coming?

Because you've had them here before.

- This is our second Smithsonian exhibition.

We'll see.

- Yeah.

- Smithsonian has a wonderful program called Museum on Main Street where they take their exhibits.

So this was originally at the American History Museum, and scale them down and then send them throughout the country to small institutions like ours.

So we'll see what happens in the future.

This has been very successful.

We've been very pleased with it, even with COVID and bad weather, it's done quite well.

- Yeah, yeah.

Okay I promised that we were gonna to go down to the history room.

- Yes.

- Okay.

Now we've seen this knockout of a second floor, the history room's down in what used to be the basement?

Is that right?

- Yes, on our lower level.

So we have meeting room space there.

Our friends of the library have a continual book sale down there.

And then we have the history room.

- Okay.

Let's take a look.

- Great.

- Bobbi, this is called the Revere room.

- Yes.

- Is that right?

Because of the Revere Company, which was here and employed so many people for so long.

- Yes.

- And made so many products.

This room though, it's got a lot of history in it, is not your history room, we're gonna see that later.

This is a meeting room for civic groups.

- Anybody.

We've had it used for, my sister had her wedding reception here.

- Is that right?

- It's just been a variety of things.

- So it's open to the public, that's wonderful.

- It's open to the public for rent, yes.

- Yeah, that's wonderful.

Other groups can meet here, I guess if they're not for profits, they can use it.

- Yep.

We've had a variety of people meet here and it's just a great space.

And we use it for programs as well.

- Yeah.

This is a big exhibit.

And the Revere Ware Company was a huge employer here at one time.

- Yes, hundreds of people worked there, if you talk to anyone who's been in town for a while, they'll know someone who worked there or they worked there themselves.

And we have a lot of Revere memorabilia, everything from some of their records to jackets to, they actually made shells during the Korean war.

So we have a couple of their shells.

And then of course, all of these.

- [Mark] And people say, hey, I've got some of that.

Or mom had some of that.

- Oh, my grandma had a whole set.

- [Mark] Grandma had that, yeah.

It looks very familiar.

And this, talk about, this is the operation that was just outside of town, wasn't it?

- [Bobbi] Yes.

Out on the east side of town.

- [Mark] And it was here until what?

1999?

- '99, I believe, is when they closed.

- [Mark] Wow.

That is a big operation.

And they would make from scratch.

They would make all these products right here in Clinton.

- [Bobbi] Yes.

I might be wrong on my dates.

I'll have to look that one up, but I know it was the nineties.

- [Mark] Well, yeah, that's close enough for me.

Before the new hospital was built.

Dr. John Warner, that name is familiar.

- [Bobbi] That's Vespasian Warner's father.

- [Mark] Oh, okay, okay.

- [Bobbi] So yes, he was a medical doctor and he did donate the money to build a hospital and it is still Warner Health Services today.

- [Mark] Okay.

So it's still a health facility?

- [Bobbi] Yes.

- [Mark] It's just now, you have a newer hospital.

- [Bobbi] Yep, we have a new building.

- Okay, that's more like a clinic than a hospital.

Here's some pictures from the square.

- Yes.

- And we mentioned the old courthouse which was torn down in the eighties, which was a very sentimental kind of a battle, I guess.

- [Bobbi] Yes, very much so.

- [Mark] Some people really wanted it to last.

The old hotel.

- [Bobbi] Yep.

The Taylor McGill hotel.

Originally the McGill hotel, the library was actually housed there for a brief period of time in two of the rooms.

- [Mark] Is that right?

Down on the down here?

- [Bobbi] Actually, I believe it was up here.

- [Mark] The library, we're standing in, all the books.

those books are probably still here somewhere.

- [Bobbi] They are, they are in our archives.

So we still have our original collection.

Doesn't circulate, but we do have it.

- [Mark] Yeah, well, you've really improved, haven't you?

- Yes.

- Another picture of the courthouse.

And this is what the square looked like in 1904.

Just about the time this building was being built.

The old building.

- [Bobbi] Just about.

- [Mark] Yeah, yep.

And of course, the central Illinois railroad was a huge operation.

And this would've been one of the busiest places.

Well, look how big the depot is.

- [Bobbi] It was, and they had a lot of their offices for this area here in Clinton.

- [Mark] I don't know what that is.

- [Bobbi] I believe that was a fire house.

- [Mark] Well, that's what it looks like, looks like a firehouse.

- [Bobbi] It should have, it's missing, we don't have a plaque for that one.

- [Mark] Yeah, we mentioned the Lincoln courthouse upstairs.

This would've been the Civil War.

Well, before the Civil War era.

- [Bobbi] Yes.

- [Mark] Actually somewhat after, and these were some of the people that he probably would've run into when he came in on the circuit and was trying cases.

- Yep.

Probably.

And I'm assuming this is after his assassination, I would imagine, they did post a picture of him there.

- [Mark] Yeah.

- [Bobbi] But I don't have a date on this one.

- [Mark] And interestingly, this is a very nice home.

It was also the county jail.

- [Bobbi] It was.

- [Mark] Back then the sheriff, the jail was in the sheriff's residence.

- [Bobbi] Yes.

- [Mark] So that's probably why the jail was in this kind of nice looking house.

And then, usually the Sheriff's wife would cook the meals.

- [Bobbi] That's what I've heard, yes.

- [Mark] Yeah.

What do we know about this?

- [Bobbi] So H.G.

Beatty, this was again on the square.

He was a very prominent business owner.

So he was mainly hardware, but we have numerous photographs of him and his store.

- [Mark] I think I see some Revere Ware in there.

- [Bobbi] There probably would've been.

- [Mark] Ah, this looks familiar.

- [Bobbi] It should.

Yes.

So this is our original building as it was being built.

So it would've been, the building was begun in 1906, completed in 1908.

So somewhere in there.

- [Mark] And we were standing in, this would've been the front door.

You and I were standing in that little lobby area.

Weren't we?

- [Bobbi] Yes, yes.

- [Mark] Okay.

And you can see, boy, this old fleur de lis fence is beautiful.

- [Bobbi] I know.

- [Mark] Too bad you don't still have that.

- [Bobbi] I know.

I would've loved to have still had that, but yeah, you can see it's kind of overgrown 'cause they were still building it.

- [Mark] Yeah, Main Street around the turn of the century.

There's an automobile.

So this is 1910 or sometime.

- [Bobbi] And the meat market is also where the library was, briefly.

It was above the meat market, yes.

- [Mark] No kidding?

You all sure bounced around a lot.

- [Bobbi] We did.

- [Mark] Nice to have a home, isn't it?

- Well, we're grateful to Clinton PEO, 'cause that chapter is what took care of the library until Vespasian Warner built the library.

- Okay, and what does PDO stand for?

- You know what, I'm honestly not sure, but, 'cause I've heard different things about it, but PEO still exists.

So there's still PEO.

- Oh, education.

PEO.

- Yes, yeah.

- Education organization, right, yeah.

- Yep.

- I know there are PEO chapters, yep.

- Yep, so we still have the chapter here in Clinton and they still meet.

- Nice.

Well Bobbi, the DeWitt County genealogical society is very active here, aren't they?

In fact they've done a lot of work here.

- It's amazing what they've done.

They're all volunteers, which again, just blows my mind.

But they've created huge indexes for all obituaries and wills and probate records and birth and marriage records that make researchers come, we've had researchers from all over the country come here to use our genealogical collections.

And the volunteer genealogists are here on Thursdays and they are extremely helpful.

They're just so excited about local history and genealogy.

They wanna help everybody.

So they're wonderful.

- And this section of books here that we're standing right in front of them against the wall there, those have all been organized in a way too.

If you come in here to do research, those are already organized for you.

If you wanna look at information from Tennessee.

- [Bobbi] Yes.

- Or if you wanna look at information from a neighboring county, I mean you can find, you don't have to go looking all over the room.

You can find it right there.

- Absolutely, it's right there.

And most of this does belong to the genealogical society.

We house it for them.

But some of the materials down here do belong to the library, but we have a very good working relationship with the society.

- Yeah, yeah.

Really nice, very nice.

This is a working room, you can tell.

- Absolutely, it is.

- We were just poking around here just a moment ago and I asked you about, and you said, oh yeah, that's an interesting picture.

Because in 1912, there was this opportunity to get all the Civil War veterans in DeWitt County together, all the ones that were still alive.

- [Bobbi] Yes.

- [Mark] What a precious picture to have.

- It's wonderful.

We actually have about three photographs from that reunion.

The GAR, the Grand Army of the Republic was a fraternal organization of Civil War veterans, Union Civil War veterans.

- Yeah.

- And we had a post here, the Frank Lowry post here in DeWitt County, Vespasian Warner was a very active member of the GAR so they'd staged a few reunions.

- I'll bet you Vespasian's in that picture.

- I've looked for him.

I know he's in some of them.

I can't find him.

- Yeah.

Well, 1912.

It would've been what, six years after he built this library.

- Yes.

- And you know, he was still alive, I'll bet he's in there.

- Oh, absolutely, 'til 1925, yeah.

- Hello, Mr. Lincoln.

- [Bobbi] Oh, yes.

We always have to say hello to Mr. Lincoln.

- Now your genealogical friends, they really do an enormous amount of work.

This entire wall is, well, let me just pick one out here and show, this entire wall has been organized so that if I wanted to find out who died in particular years and where they lived and all about them, these obituaries are priceless.

They have, of course they have it, everything annotated in the front.

And then they have the actual obituaries themselves from the newspaper, about everybody in this alphabetic category and the year.

So, I mean, think what this would save people if they wanted to come, - [Bobbi] Yes.

- And learn about their families or people that they thought they knew, or just people of historical value.

- Absolutely.

And we get a lot of email and phone requests as well of, I'm looking for an obituary for my great-grandfather.

His name was such and such, and we are able to come down here and find it.

And this is again, all volunteer work from the genealogical society.

- Yeah, yeah.

- And they've done the same with marriages.

We have a huge collection of probate records from the county that they're currently organizing, but they still have, they already have those all indexed and it's incredible.

- That's gotta be a labor of love because this would drive me crazy.

I'm not real detail oriented.

- Yes.

- And I would be sitting in front of this thing and I would just go crazy.

- But it is, and they're very passionate about local history and about genealogy.

So we're very grateful to them because makes our lives easier.

- Yeah.

- And they're always happy to help anyone who walks through the door.

- Right.

And like you say, on Thursdays, when they're here, they can take this room and they can take care of people and you don't have to devote manpower to it.

- [Bobbi] Absolutely.

- [Mark] And they enjoy doing it.

- [Bobbi] And they love doing it.

- [Mark] That's what they want to do.

- [Bobbi] Yeah.

- Well, I want to thank you for a fascinating visit Bobbi, because this has been, the way you all have married the old building and the new building, and the joyful atmosphere in that children's section up there, it's really, really quite stunning.

- Well, thank you.

We are quite for proud of our library.

We love our patrons.

We're here to serve them.

So thank you so much for coming out.

- Thank you.

A reminder, the Clinton, actually it's called the Vespasian Warner Library.

- [Bobbi] Vespasian Warner.

- In Clinton is of course open to the public every day but Sunday.

And of course, like most libraries, it's free.

And it's really an interesting visit.

With another Illinois story, in Clinton.

I'm Mark McDonald.

Thanks for watching.

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